Pinky (1949)
Director: Elia Kazan
A powerful race picture that fought for social equality Pinky
sadly also proves to be quite the controversial film in its portrayal of its
light skinned African American main character with the undeniably white leading
lady Jeanne Crain. However, with her Academy Award nominated performance the
feature does much in terms of bringing to the forefront racial issues within
American society while whitewashing the main character. For a film as
progressive as Pinky, it spoke loudly against social injustice in a post
WWII period where Americans were riding high painting an idyllic history that
was not accurately portraying the fight still being waged in their own backyard.
Pinky is a race drama about a light skinned African
American woman who spend a period of her life passing as a white who returns to
her home in the Deep South to once again be confronted with severe racism. We
follow Patricia “Pinky” Johnson (Jeanne Crain) on here return to the South to
visit her grandmother Dicey (Ethel Waters), the poor black illiterate laundress
that raised her. As a very light skinned African American Pinky reaped the
benefits of passing as a white girl while studying to be a nurse in the North
and falling in love with a white doctor, Tom (William Lundigan), with whom she
had not shared her background with. Back in the South Pinky in confronted with
racism and bigotry, caring for a sick, wealthy, and stubborn white woman, Miss
Em (Ethel Barrymore), who ends up bequeathing her large house and property to
Pinky after her passing. Due to the bigotry of Em’s relatives and the white
townsfolk Pinky fights to keep her rightfully willed possessions through a
legal battle that appears stacked up against her. Pinky’s legal victory only
proves to anger up the white community leaving a now enlightened Tom to implore
Pinky to sell her new property and move away with him for her own good.
However, Pinky decides to stay and turn the house into a school for black
children, deciding to part with Tom to work for the greater good of her race
and mankind despite the uphill fight.
The picture on a whole is a well-made feature that takes on
a serious social issue head on providing a poignant message with good writing,
with strong performances, and shot expertly for a feature clearly filmed
primarily on a studio backlot. Perhaps the area the picture lacks in most is
that of the portrayal of lead character of Pinky was by Jeanne Crain who fails
to carry the great emotional strain Pinky would be battling through as an
African American in the Deep South. The fact that she in no way resembles an
American American, let alone light skinned mix raced individual, does take some
getting use to. Once you look past the physical suspension of disbelief and
Crain’s general malaise and focus on the plot of the character it is easy to
follow the emotional journey of our hero. The film becomes a quiet champion of
social inequality in period when the issue would begin to simmer in the
background of American culture.
What began as a John Ford picture was eventually handed off
to director Elia Kazan following producer Darryl F. Zanuck’s observing the
initial dailies. Deciding the material was failing to connect with Ford’s style
the Fox studio head made the switch with filmmakers. For Kazan a motion picture
like Pinky captures the tones he came to be known for presenting on
screen in his works with the raw representation of social issues,
relationships, and drive for method acting. Pinky comes still in the
earlier parts of Kazan’s directorial career, but with A Tree Grows in
Brooklyn (1945) and Gentleman’s Agreement (1947) both being about societal
issues and gaining critic acclaim Pinky was a story better shaped by a
storyteller of his ilk rather than Ford.
Jeanne Crain stars in a very challenging role, a
professional gamble in the eyes of most actresses, as she plays a light skinned
African American rattled by racial issues of the day. Furthermore, was the idea
of her portraying a member of an interracial romance in a sense that Pinky was
black and her fiancé Tom, played by William Lundigan, was white. Of course, part
of the reason having Pinky played by a white actress would allow
character to share this romantic relationship on screen skirting the moral
censors of showcasing an actual mixed-race relationship since both actors were
white. This would not completely obliviate the issue as upon release certain
markets, most notable a case in Texas, would ban the picture over depicting an
interracial relationship. In time the First Amendment would help to defeat such
bigotry, the very same prejudice this film was attempting to bring attention
to.
The picture comes together rather well to manifest a strong
race movie that although is whitewashed by the casting of Jeanne Crain remains
to get its message across in the end. Crain’s sometime distant-staring acting
to represent the emotional strain of Pinky gets to be a bit tiresome making
some now, many decades later, wish that this role would have been portrayed by an
actress of color. Crain’s performance is expertly balanced by the supporting cast
members of Ethel Barrymore and Ethel Waters. Barrymore, one the greatest
actresses of her generation of stage and screen, provides a legitimacy to the
film portraying well rounding Miss Em. The aged, dying woman is terribly
racist, but manifests signs of redemption as she wills Pinky her property partially
out of respect and having actress of Barrymore’s strengthens the picture.
Waters portrays Pinky’s loving grandmother who does not come off very well rounded
in the long run of the picture, but provides Pinky’s connection to her roots. Legend
states Waters was possibly the reason Ford was removed from the picture as the
two butted heads over her performance in the role.
Crain, Barrymore, and Waters all received Academy Award
nominations for their performances which capped of a period of critical success
following the picture’s release. Crain’s performance was generally mixed for,
and Waters performance nothing of great note, but due to the film’s strong message
the Academy appears to give them both nods for moral purposes. Audiences too
would support the picture well enough to make it the highest grossing picture
of 1949 for Fox and the year’s second highest grossing feature
Pinky as a well constructed picture brought attention
to an important issue that American was battling with behind its supposed clean
demeanor. To see it do as well as it did manifests that were many that felt was
needed to be met as the decade rolled over into the 50s. The picture has its
problems, but its intent is strong enough to push through the whitewashing and
help inspire future productions to focus on utilizing the medium of film to
both entertain and educate audiences of issues that lay at the front door of popular
that regularly attended movie theaters, hoping that it would make a difference.
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